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Has anyone actually done those strange
new tours that Tate Britain is suggesting for visitors after its recent
rehang? The ads are all over the London Underground: the Rainy Day collection, the I've Just Split Up collection, and whatnot.

Has anyone actually done those strange new tours that Tate Britain is suggesting for visitors after its recent rehang? The ads are all over the London Underground: the Rainy Day collection, the I've Just Split Up collection, and whatnot.

Each gives you a route through the museum of five paintings to fit the theme, which is a nice enough idea. But it's accompanied by a commentary of staggering inanity and the whole thing is introduced with a grotesque happy-campers jollity: "Yes it's a museum, but it's also like a big living room," the blurb claims (erroneously, if my living room is anything to go by).

The I've Just Split Up collection starts like this: "We know how it feels to wake up in the mornings. Everything feels like Ophelia. But think about it. If someone else went through that, then maybe it's not the end of the world for you." The Odd Faces collection, apart from paintings by Bacon, Marcus Gheeraerts II and so forth, actually includes a photograph of "Harry Pye: he works at the bookshop from 1000 to 1730. Don't stare at him for too long because he gets really angry. Just kidding." Er, bonkers, if not offensive?

I love Tate Britain and I can see what they are trying to do here. But surely there's a difference between making the place seem friendly and accessible, and just being patronising? There's something so desperate about the whole thing, too: it's a bit like the bad old days when the V&A was a great caff with quite a nice museum attached.